Explaining Creativity

Reviews / Votes

R. Keith Sawyer's second edition of Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation is so expanded that it is a truly different book from the first edition. The first edition was (correctly) praised and appreciated; the second edition is required reading for anyone interested in the topic. In a just world, Sawyer's thorough and nuanced volume would be the best seller... Sawyer's book is easily the most thorough creativity text on the market. Graduate students and burgeoning researchers will want this book on their shelves. We highly recommend this book. * PsyCritiques * Sawyer has put together a mountain of research from a variety of fields to create a unified approach to understanding how people manage to do something different. His book is readable and learned, origninal, but mindful of its relation to all that other work, and well worth the attention of anyone who wants to think seriously about innovation in the arts and in social organizations. * Howard S. Becker, author of Art World, Tricks of the Trade and Outsiders (for the previous edition) * An extremely knowledgable, wide-ranging, integrative summary of how the social sciences understand creativity. Keith Sawyer has again produced an intelligent and valuable contribution to knowledge. This is a volume that any scholar or lay-person interested in what creativity entails will want to have. * Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Director, Quality of Life Research Center and C.S. and D.J. Davidson, Professor, Peter F. Drucker School of Management, Claremont Graduate University (for the previous edition) * With the publication of Explaining Creativity, Keith Sawyer has emerged as the leading young scholar and proponent of a sociocultural approach to the study of creativity. And with his remarkable grasp of this young field, Professor Sawyer has written the most comprehensive and compelling work on creativity studies in years. * David Henry Feldman, Professor, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development, Tufts University, and author of Changing the World (for the previous edition) * Without doubt Explaining Creativity is the most comprehensive single-volume presentation of what we know about the creative process, person, and product. Besides that, the book is extremely well written. It would be my first recommendation for anyone fascinated with creativity in all of its complexities and manifestations. There's simply nothing better out there for either specialist or general reader. * Dean Keith Simonton, Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, and author of Origins of Genius *